Letters to the editor, Nov. 14

Regarding “New ways to get to the old ballgame” (Nov. 13): The latest article about the proposed Lake Merritt location for the Oakland A’s new stadium set off huge alarm bells. A’s management clearly wishes fans will suddenly become dedicated transit riders and be enthusiastic about long walks to and from the stadium.

They do not plan for improvements to the freeway entrances, nor to the tiny Lake Merritt BART Station. They are not addressing the needs of mobility-impaired fans. Magically, people will go from 20 percent using transit to 60 percent, when it includes a walk of a mile. I love baseball, I fell in love with it at A’s games over 30 years ago. I love AT&T Park’s location. But the Laney College site is not the right downtown location, with its overwhelming impact to an existing neighborhood and its planners’ improbable dreams of drastic change in human behavior.

Rita Hurault, Oakland

False information

It was truly eye-opening to read “YouTube’s a pawn as some game the news of tragedy” (Business, Nov. 13). How can this website allow unverified, false and even defamatory videos to be uploaded for viewing by millions of users? It’s astonishing that someone who was an operations manager at a hazardous materials plant could provide false information about the identity and motives of the shooter in the recent Texas church massacre, or post a “fact-challenged” video with the title “Hillary Clinton is on Crack Cocaine.” If our 45th president wants to target sources of “fake news,” YouTube would be a good example.

LaVerne Fitzgerald, Oakland

Apple repair

Given that Apple gets a major tax break from parking profits offshore, they should demonstrate some civic virtue by using a portion of that savings to finance the repair of lead-tainted water systems in Bay Area public schools. Many local districts have purchased and used Apple products for decades, helping to propagate generations of Apple consumers. Now seems a good time for Apple to give back to a public sector that has been a vital partner in their growth.

Mark Allendorf, San Mateo

Mayor Buckley

Amongst the diverse candidates winning in the recent election, there was also an Australian immigrant, Gavin Buckley, a Democrat who built a restaurant business that helped revitalize West Street into a popular arts and entertainment district, and beat an incumbent Republican mayor of Annapolis, Va.!

Henry Karnilowicz, San Francisco

All about publicity

It is clear that rational discourse about gun control is getting us nowhere. Therefore, we need to change the discussion to something that public figures can understand. The recent senseless murder of 26 people in a Texas church knocked President Trump off the front page during his Asia visit. If politicians recognize that gun violence deprives them of publicity, maybe they will finally do something about it.

Raphael Stricker, San Francisco

Trump’s fawning

Regarding “Trump’s new best frenemy” (Editorial, Nov. 11): President Trump’s fawning over Chinese President Xi Jinping is disgraceful. China remains a totalitarian society that forbids a free press, limits Internet search access, and routinely jails and executes political opponents. This 45th president’s embrace of Xi, and other authoritarian leaders like the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte and Russia’s Vladimir Putin simply reinforces his own attempts to curtail our own country’s democratic institutions. Are our elected representatives in Washington, D.C., simply going to allow Trump to become another despicable despot?

Felix Samuelson, San Rafael

Address the facts

This is an open letter to our senators and representatives in Congress. Last night while driving home in the rain, I got lost and found myself in a place I had never been in before — a realm of hell where hundreds of men, women and children huddled under a highway overpass in the dark, trying to protect themselves and their meager possessions from the onslaught of wind and water. This morning, I am angry — not at those spectre-like human beings trying to survive under America’s freeways.

Today, I am angry at the (relatively few) Americans who have manipulated our tax code to amass obscene amounts of wealth, then hide that wealth outside the U.S. to avoid paying the taxes that would prevent the nightmare I saw last night. I urge you and your colleagues to wake up to the devastation that is now everywhere in our country. I further urge you to stop debating on the proposed tax bill and address the facts contained in the Paradise Papers. And, finally, I urge you to work with your colleagues to design a tax code that serves all of us.

Mary Enright, Mountain View

Nonlethal option

Regarding “Mountain lion subdued in S.F.’s Diamond Heights” (Nov. 11): The saga of the mountain lion in Diamond Heights, tranquilized by a compassionate park ranger, is a reminder that when you have a gun, you don’t always have to shoot to kill.

Piers Lahey, Daly City

Drone assaults devastate civilians

Regarding “A cowardly act” (Letters, Nov. 5): The letter writer says terrorist attacks are cowardly and that terrorists attack those who can’t fight back. What does the letter writer think of the drone and air strikes launched by the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq that have killed or maimed hundreds of civilians, including children, who have no chance of fighting back? Are we to be excused from cowardice? According to the Project on Defense Alternatives, as many as 5,726 Iraqis were killed in the U.S. assault on Baghdad, and over half of those were civilians. Shock and awe spared no one, man, woman or child, friend or foe. What would the citizens of Baghdad have called the U.S. attack?